I'm not sure if velvet is really obvious or not, but I'm afraid my Epsilon may have it. I mean, he's acting completely fine - eating, swimming, responding, whatever. But I was nervous, and after I took a really good look at him with a flash light in the dark, I realized he has a very, very very thin dusting of copper along his sides, but not all throughout his body. Well, I dunno if it's copper, but it's sort of an orange-y color, quite faint.. could this be velvet?

If it is, how long would he possibly last? I don't know if I have time to go all the way to Petco to buy him the stuff he needs - I've done some research on anti-parasitic medicines, like Atabrin, Aquarisol, Quick Cure, and Aq salt. I've plugged his heater in, and the temperature is around 80 - 82 degrees, and I'm keeping the light in his tank turned off, for good measure. I'll do a 50% change of his water tomorrow (treated).

He lives in a 2 gallon tank with an under gravel filter. I got him about a week ago.

Depending on the pigment on the iridescent layer of the fish, it can be hard to spot. If there's no behavioral differences or differences in appearance, he probably doesn't have it. Velvet tends to look like yellow-gold granules in between the scales of the fish. Kind of like powdered mustard--if you've ever seen that before. It's much finer than ich, but it still has a three dimensional look to it.

To be on the safe side, you should probably review the efficiency of your water change schedule--after all, velvet only infests fish that have been weakened or made vulnerable to it in some way. The most common way is from poor water quality. How much water/how often do you change the water in his container?

The last water change I did was on Monday, and I thought I would be able to change 50% once every week, (with gravel vacuuming with each change). Maybe I should change it to two 50% changes every week?

When my fish had velvet it had very stiff fins and was lethargic, as well as a dusting of powder. I used the Jungle Ick Guard (it has victoria green in it) and did a lot of water changes, and within 3 days I noticed a HUGE improvement in the fish, much happier! Good luck!